Remarkable Progress of Information and Technology, Term Paper Example

Abstract

Information and Technology has revolutionized the ways of undertaking business.  Recent years have seen a remarkable progress in the field of information and technology. These new technologies facilitate the complex business processes of enterprises. In this paper, a small medium Insurance Company has been taken as a case study. The paper will discuss the process of automation of business processes undertaken by the organization. The implementation of the service-oriented architectures will be discussed while exploring the independent, volatile service-based nature of the structure.

Summary

In the first part of the paper the current state of IT function in the organization will be discussed. This part of the paper will explore the role and impact of IT in the organization. In the second part of the paper the plan will be developed to support the organization’s current and emerging needs for information management and dissemination. The third part of the paper will discuss the chosen appropriate corresponding IT organizational model and characterize its suitability for executing the corporate mission of the organization. The fourth part of the paper will discuss the IT architectures which will be implemented for the support of proposed to support your IT solution. In the last section of the paper the merits of the proposed IT solution will be discussed as to how the IT solution will be helpful in solving particular organizations business challenges.

The use of Technology for gaining competitive advantage is imperative as it is a strategic tool and has to be powerfully incorporated with the overall business plan.  The service industry is faced with various key business challenges including increase in the level of services provision, cost reduction, enhancement in customer base, regularizing the processes, streamlining collaboration between workers and wherever required, a technology or Internet-based solution for these challenges should be provided.  Below, the case study of New York Insurance Company will be discussed.

The Company Overview

Founded in 1845, the Company based in New York is mainly aimed at the provision of wide range of insurance and investment products and services. The range of products offered include “life and health insurance, long-term care, annuities, pension products, mutual funds, and other investments and investment advisory services” (Bloomberg Business Week, 2010). The customer base of the company is expended in Asia and Latin America. The company also caters the requirements of the members of American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) by offering products as insurance and guaranteed lifetime income annuity.  The product line is not limited to these products but is extended to the provision of group life and health insurance to membership associations. The company also provides financial services in shape of securities brokerage, financial planning, trust services, and capital financing (Bloomberg Business Week, 2010).

Challenges

As the company offer a large variety of products :“life and health insurance, long-term care, annuities, pension products, mutual funds, and other investments and investment advisory services” (Bloomberg Business Week, 2010) it has become hard for the telesales agents to deal with the multi layered system. They were left with their own intuition to look for the procedure for finding out the answers to the queries of customers. The diversified range of products and services offered by the company propelled the requirement of specified systems which were not interlinked. This hindered the provision of quick availability of information to the customers regarding the products. On the other hand the customers were looking for the provision of consistent knowledge from all sources call-center, sales raps and Web self-service.

The company requires to establish instant access to the customer information. The challenge needs to be addressed is to fetch the data from different repositories and even in different formats.

To limit possible risks, the Management Information System consultancy division recommends setting up an optimal information structure with active participation of the company’s team. Based on the company’s guidelines and management rules, this new Service-oriented architecture will take into account of the strategic priorities, as well as the data processing resources. A report of the company’s specific characteristics will be given and is used for matching the appropriate software.

A thorough knowledge of the software applications’ modules will enable the rapid pre-select and suggests solutions corresponding to the company’s requirements.

The solutions will then be presented, along with professional recommendations and the company will be able to make their own choice, under the most favorable conditions.

When the management software application is selected, the management information system team will provide their services in assisting its implementation: installation, integration of all software applications with the information system. They will also help put in transferring of previous data into current system and producing the testing reports, etc. New users will be trained and assisted for usage of new system. The company should workout to find appropriate and experience vendors for provision of software and which may provide a quick and low cost implementation of your solution.

Initially, the Management Information System consultant will identify the requirements and the constraint of the present working scenario. After the comparison and based on the information collected with the new guidelines and management rules a target organization model will be recommended and after the approval of this target organization model, he will suggest the procedures required for commencement of this module. During implementation, the supplier should assist the training and coaching the employees as a team to boost the start of the company’s re-structured organization, thus allowing it to reap the full benefits of the new information system.

The implementation of SOA in the company will help the company in the integration of multilayered system in the organisation. The SOA will incorporate the imaging system, organizational policy and divisional policy, hence facilitating the telesales agent to respond to the queries of clients without undertaking the call transfer. The SOA will provide information from different sources at the screen simultaneously. The telesales agent will be able to get detailed customer information with the product information in assimilation with each other on a single screen. It will also facilitate the provision of customer updates for undertaking improvement in key call centre metrics like time taken to handle a call, call blockage etc.

The Organization need to enforce different federal and state regulations on the other hand the security of important data transmitted, maintenance and management issues will also be reviewed.

What is SOA?

In the present era, the main aim of a business organization is to enhance the user experience, maximize business efficiencies and reduce the possibility of error in the business processes. The achievement of high level of accuracy and efficiency is difficult to achieve in the organizations where there are number of different functions which are not properly aligned with the businesses process.

In order to design SOA architecture two main challenges are faced by the designer: Designing the system in a way which can properly integrate the business processes, business goals, and IT architecture, and the second challenge is the adaptability of constant changes due to development. In order to find suitable solutions to the challenges it is important to understand what SOA is.

A Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is an IT infrastructure that links together a number of business services and re-uses existing assets to create a complete business workflow. Most internal business processes are typically restricted by the boundaries of the functionality contained within each discrete application. All business processes is formed by the combination of different applications, departments and stakeholders. Service Oriented Architecture facilitates the flawless working of complete business through integration of different functionality blocks related to different applications.

Advantages of Service Oriented Architectures:

The company is expected to avail two major business advantages from the implementation of SOA which are:

• Improved business pace: Through the implementation of SOA the existing business processes can be enhanced in very limited time with least possible risk changed in the minimum amounts of time and with minimal risk. The SOA can successfully combine the functionality blocks of a business unit without taking in account the point of their origin.
• New application functionality – new business processes can be built as the business changes to ensure maximum efficiency and returns from IT investment. The concept of services combining into business processes is much closer to the way decision makers think, so they can define new processes and have them implemented much more quickly than with traditional approaches.

Through integrating disparate parts of each business service into a business workflow an SOA can add value across the entire business and its key stakeholders from supplier to end user. Strategic decisions can be made confidently with relevant, up to date information about an organisation and its markets delivered to an appropriate portal, web browser, PDA or mobile phone.

Practical Steps on the Road to SOA

1 – Conducting an impact analysis:

SOA will entirely change the processes undertaken in the organization so it is important for the company to undertake enterprise wide impact analysis. The research needs to be undertaken on the level and aftermath of the change SOA will bring to the organization. The research should be undertaken before the development of the implementation plan.  The analysis will include the following:

• Undertaking the overview of current and upcoming development tools
• Reviewing Infrastructure essentials
• Training requirements of the staff
• Change in the business processes
• Proposed betterment in the security models and policies.

2 – Setting the Parameters:

In the second step the internal and external factors will be studied in the light of impact analysis.  The scope of change will be analyzed. The Financial constraints and the strategic direction are two most important factors which will determine the size and scope of SOA implementation in the organization.

3 – Involving the team of organizational members with “can do” attitude:

The automation of the business processes at enterprise level will trigger different challenging scenarios. It will be important for the company to put together a project team with a positive can do attitude. It will be important for the team members to fully understand and approve the principles and strategic choices in order to ensure the implementation of integrated system at enterprise level.

4 – Evolution is inevitable:

Implementation of SOA definitely leads to the evolution as far as the infrastructure is concerned. As with the development of SOA a company is aimed at fulfilling its current and future requirements. Hence the change adoption is necessary. For the adoption of this change it is necessary that the structure is flexible enough to absorb the degree of change required in the organization.

5- Growth is expected to be experienced even after the implementation phase:

The growth or change in the environment should not be expected to merely implementation stage but it can be expected in the post-introductory phase. A careful analysis needs to be undertaken in order to analyze the resources required to maintain and expand on these environments, so that the positivity gained from the implementation of new structure can be successfully carried forward in to a continuous improvement cycle (Team Solve, 2007).

The main purpose of the construction of the IT architecture is to eke the business processes and to respond to the challenges posed to the business organizations due to constant change of business environment. With the increasing importance of service organizations the business organizations have started designing the system architecture while keeping services central. As analyzed in many service organizations, a service has four basic aspects:

• Provision
• Consumption
• Description
• Brokerage

Properties of SOA:

For a system to be regarded as SOA-based, it should posses following characteristics:

The software can track the business as the processes are mapped to them.

The infrastructure of the architecture ekes all the four aspects of service hence improving the pace of service provision.

As services can be monitored and managed. It makes it manageable to track properties and problems to business processes.

SOA applications

The service-oriented architecture to be implemented in the organization is depicted in the figure below. The mechanism of the service-oriented architecture is explained separately which includes: The user interface applications and the service applications is the basis of the partial or full support of Business process

Figure 1 Elements of a SOA, adapted from the CBDI Service Oriented Architecture Practice Portal

Figure 1 was adapted from “Understanding SOA” by David Sprott and Lawrence Wilkes, on the CBDI Service Oriented Architecture Practice Portal.

Challenges Posed at Implementation:

The following challenges will arise while the implementation of service-oriented architecture at the New York Life Insurance Company. The identification of the service is very important. The business function it will perform needs to be identified.

The determination of service location in an enterprise is important.

The service domain needs to be defined. It explains the logical sequence in which the services are tied together.

Services should be packaged in the legacy mainframe systems so that they can be re-engineered easily.

Requests of the customers should be easily routed to the appropriate service.

Development of the enterprise level governance system for the administration and maintenance of services

Adoption of consistent service messaging standards at enterprise level.

The later part of the report will provide in-depth explanations of the process which will be used for addressing these challenges.

Service Location

Challenge

The synchronization of data between two systems will be an important requirement for the organization as the data would be spread across multiple applications. The operations of services are usually undertaken on specific set of business entities which reside in the record system. These services are then ideally executed from these systems of record.

Approaches

The company is available with three possible solutions to the problem faced.  These solutions namely are: content based routing, service repository-based routing, and back-end replication.

Content-based routing :

By the application of the approach, the request for the service will be routed to the appropriate corresponding record.  The unique quality of the approach is that it provides transparency of location for the users of the service without exposing the algorithm determining the position of the service. The instance of the service is supported by the systems of record. The service instances take the position logical entry points of a request.

Figure 2. Content-based routing (Adopted from Nadhan, 2004)

Figure(2) explains the content-based routing. Through the use of the approach the company will be able to segregate the information of the customers by region. The data repositories will be divided according to the different regions and the data of the customer from a specified region will be recorded in the corresponding repository. However the data will be accessible by the service consumers within all the regions.  As soon as the incoming request will be received by the organization, the business rule determining the specified repository containing the data of the customer will be executed. The request will be completed by the routing of Customer Profile service to the appropriate region.

Service Domain Definition

As the company offers multiple services related to different dimensions it will be helpful to classify the services into logical domains. It will help in the simplification of architecture by undertaking the reduction in the components which will be required to address. The groupings will also provide the ease of load balancing, increased access control, division of business logic as desired by the organization. However, it will be necessary for the different divisions and business units to develop consensus on the parameters defining the business domain and the most appropriate logic which can be adopted for grouping of service domains.

Approaches

It is possible that the company can adopt multiple approaches for the definition of service domains. As shown in Table 1, the distribution can be undertaken according to the applications and platforms used by different business units.

Table 1. Sample application distribution

As explained above the service domains used in the organization are from different platform such as UNIX, Linux and Windows. The services can be best supported by the implementation of infrastructure services including transaction monitoring and event handling etc. These services are directly related to their executable platforms rather than the business processes generating the functional service domains.

Functional domains:

The company can also use the Functional domains based on the business functions being served by a set of services. The units owning the business process owners in the organization will be most suitable for the definition and separation of business functions.  The functional domains provide the liberty of autonomous control of the services within domain to the business process owners. With the assurance of the provision of specific service the business process owners gain complete control over the architecture and implementation of the services.

Service Identification

Challenge: As the company uses multiple functions, proper identification and determination of corresponding service providers is essential for the preparation of service-oriented architecture.

Although the challenge can be addressed in two ways through service rationalization or through service consolidation, but Here in the case of New York Insurance company service rationalization will be applied. In Service rationalization a careful analysis of all the systems and applications involved in the business function will be undertaken. Service rationalization ensures consistent delivery of services by supporting the business functionality through the inclusion of least accessed systems in the more frequently accessed systems. The reorganization of the systems in this way will lead to increased consistency of service delivery.

Figure (3) explains the process of service rationalization.

Adoption of Service Messaging Standards

Challenge : The Company will be facing the challenge of enforcement of Messaging standards and consistency of data elements.

The organization will be required to use Metadata repositories, which will be used to ensure the flawless representation of key business entities.

The organization should form a metadata governance team which is aimed at the performing the Meta data governance tasks at the organizational level.  Although the organization can implement distributed governance model for maintaining the services, it will be suitable to implement central governance model for metadata.

Benefits:

As the company was facing the issue of the lack of proper knowledge provision to the customers in timely manner, it is expected that approximately 84% of the issues with the customers will be resolved through the implementation of Service Oriented Architecture in the New York Insurance Company.  The transfer of calls to the secondary layer of system will also be reduced by 60 percent. The provision of information from the call centre in an efficient and timely manner will also reduce the transfer calls to the sales staff and underwriters by an estimated 70%.  This will also lead to the reduction of policy -processing time. The increased pace of business processing will also lead to increment in growth rate.

The provision of complete information regarding the customers will provide a deep insight to the customers’ requirements and preferences. This will enable the company to undertake better decision making processes hence leading to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty. The flow of information through the components of system will make the opportunities recognizable for the telesales agents.

Conclusion

Information is the foundation of a healthy and competent business management. An information system allows the collection and processing of data to produce useful information for designated users at each level of management.  As the next decade will be greatly influenced by the accelerating change in of high-speed communications and technology, management must conform to well-defined principles, run on appropriate software, and be completely adapted to your organization within an integrated system.

Implementation of IT system requires a combination of planned change, organization development, and change management processes. Effective change management is only possible when the employees are motivated to accept change (Burnes, 2000). In order to effectively address the resistance to change it is important to undertake the examination of logical synchronization of strategic changes and organizational requirements. The Service-oriented architectures have gained acceptance as a reliable and modularized approach for designing and implementation of the services across the organization at extended level. The successful implementation of these structures requires careful planning by the organization.  The organizations must be able to provide ongoing support after the implementation has been undertaken.

The nature and intensity of the challenges faced by a company in the implementation of the Service Oriented Architecture will be different for all organizations. They cannot be eradicated completely but they can be minimized by planning a roadmap for successful implementation of SOA.   The resulting factors of the challenges faced by the organizations in the process of implementation and after implementation will be different for all organizations according to the nature of business they are dealing in. (Nadhan, 2004).

Although the report has discussed many possible challenges which the New York Insurance company will face during the implementation of the Service-oriented structures but still there can be a possibility of new challenges faced by the company as the architecture will start working.

References

Bloomberg Business Week, New York Life Insurance Co. September 28, 2010 http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=188096 Accessed 27/09/2010

McComb, “Semantics in business systems: the savvy manager’s guide: the discipline underlying web-services, business rules, and the semantic web”, Morgan Kaufman, 2004.

Fethi A. Rabhi, Hairong Yu, Feras T. Dabous and Sunny Y. Wu, A service-oriented architecture for financial business processes: A case study in trading strategy simulation. Information Systems and E-Business Management Volume 5, Number 2, 185-200,

Paolucci, N. Srinivasan, K. P. Sycara, T. Nishimura, “Towards a Semantic Choreography of Web Services: From WSDL to DAML-S”, In Proceedings of the International Conference on Web

Nadhan, Easwaran G, (2004). Service-Oriented Architecture: Implementation Challenges April 2004 http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa480029.aspx (Accessed 25/09/2010)

Team Solve, (2007). Service Oriented Architecture: Integrating Business and Technology http://www.teamsolve.co.uk/files/soa_integrating_business__technology_-_white_paper.pdf